How Police Forces Are Using Digital Evidence Management to Help Power Through the Energy Crisis

October 13, 2022

More than a decade of underfunding continues to place huge pressure on police forces. After years of austerity and a global pandemic, most would have found it hard to imagine how the thin blue line could get any thinner. Yet, as we enter the final months of 2022, police forces along with everyone else, are now finding themselves facing truly eyewatering energy bills.

Without additional emergency funding from the government, some forces are weighing up the degree to which they will need to respond in order to balance the books. To highlight the scale of the problem, a recent article, suggests that the additional energy costs for the 43 forces in England and Wales will exceed £100million.

For some forces this may mean holding back on recruitment of new officers, as well as closing down and/or selling off buildings. The later has been a trend for some time, with the Metropolitan Police reportedly recouping £131 million from the sale of stations in London, since the start of the pandemic. In fact, it is estimated that 667 stations in the UK have been shut down since 2010.

Most forces do not have the ability to make such large savings as the Met, and the importance of smaller local stations was evident during the pandemic. Those buildings provided essential contingency, that helped to keep officers and administrative staff safe and operational, as part of measures introduced to delay/prevent the spread of Covid-19.

The rise in energy prices is driving all of us to take a closer look at how we reduce consumption and costs, in the face of such uncertainty and volatility. It can often be the small things that can add up to a significant sum (look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves). For me, cutting out that cup of coffee on the way in to work each day could save hundreds of pounds over the course of a year, and there are many other areas, where significant gains could be made, such as installing solar panels. An excellent example of uncovering cost savings in the context of day-to-day policing, comes from a recent piece of work undertaken by Hampshire Constabulary.

Hampshire Constabulary recently implemented the cloud-based NICE Investigate digital evidence management solution. The force estimates a projected total annual cost saving in the region of £846k by automating the process of evidence ingestion and case building, not having to drive around to collect and share evidence What’s more, these savings do not include the many other associated efficiency gains that Hampshire Constabulary and many other forces are achieving, using a digital evidence management solution (DEMS).

This is just one illustration and whilst it would be far more beneficial and preferable for forces to be able to reinvest the resource gains they achieve; it could help to close the gap during what we all hope will be a short term (albeit painful) problem.

Clearly, there is no quick fix or easy answer to the unprecedented situation in which we currently find ourselves. The need to do the same or more with less is sadly not a new message for forces. However, whether it is through the application of new technologies, challenging conventional working practices or using collective buying power to get a better deal, there are still opportunities to make substantial savings. Hopefully, the ‘golden future’ envisioned by the outgoing Prime Minister will soon be realised, but for now, police force is looking for new ways to navigate through the forthcoming winter of discontent.

For more information about how Hampshire Constabulary has made substantial efficiency and energy savings, read the new case study.

About the Author

Jamie Wilson

Jamie is responsible for NICE’s Public Safety field marketing within EMEA and APAC. He has worked within the Security and Public Safety industries for over 25 years, with a diversity of product experience. These include ID card and passport personalisation solutions for the financial and security markets to most recently helping to drive the rapid adoption and articulate the benefits of Digital Evidence Management solutions for the police. Jamie has a BA Hons Degree in Geography/History from Canterbury Christ Church University and a post graduate Certificate in Marketing (CIM) from Southampton Solent University.

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How Police Forces Are Using Digital Evidence Management to Help Power Through the Energy Crisis

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